Winter gardening tips for your bee-plants

An echium vulgare seedling - yes, really ugly but the flowers are magnificent

If you have bought any of these plants from us then here are some winter care tips that will help you get the most from them later in the year:

Echium vulgare : Avoid weeding out echium seedlings as they look like weeds at this time of year (see above). They can be distinguished from other prickly weeds by the course white spots on thier leaves and also the tips of the older leaves tend to go black.....and, of course, they should be in the area where and echium vulgare flowered last summer.

Hyssop: if its more than two years old or getting a bit woody, cut it back hard- as much as half way into the bush - to encourage new growth. I have had dear take mine right back to just a stump and they still grew again.

Lavenders: if you didn’t trim them after then flowered then take the chance to do so now before lightly they start new growth – just about an inch of the growing tips. This will help keep them bushy and last a few more years.

Heleniums: watch out for slugs as it warms up

Also, Don’t worry if some of them seem to have disappeared completely e.g. Calamint as that’s just their winter habit. It helps to keep their old stalks on to mark where they are.